well….as i write about ‘not having a sense of at-homeness’, not feeling at home anywhere…I am experiencing deep grief…pain….i want to give up, go and curl up somewhere…..but

just to add a bit of humour here…i find it interesting that everytime i write something in this blog, i then have to click the ‘home’ button to go back to the front page…!

I hope that spring time brings a new, fresh breeze…i have so much work ahead: need to complete the book chapter for Sage, write the book review for Therapy Today journal, complete my article on focus groups, write up the research proposal, prepare for the workshop i will deliver in Greece, prepare for the Review Panel etc etc…and also deal with so many personal issues, within myself, in relationships and other practical stuff…need to keep a balance amongst everything…I AM more important than anything I am doing or which ever /task i undertake, we need to be careful around keeping healthy…so, March is here…carpe diem

It has been a while now that my relationship with research and the counselling field in general has been one of ‘love and hate’, in the sense that it has brought so many intense responses in me that I often wondered ‘what is this all about?’. There have been times that I felt ‘in love’ about being a counsellor and researcher and other times that I have felt (maybe also feel like this now) that I have ‘fallen out of love’ with it, that it is too hard work and I’d rather have some peace…somehow. As I was thinking about whether ‘I shall love my PhD’ in order to manage to do it, an interesting email come through my mailbox, about a research network on Love. Here is how they describe themeselves: … Read more »

This is a ‘metaphor’ borrowed by one of Pittu Laungani’s articles that I have been contemplating on recently. I have often used this metaphor to describe processes around the sense of  ‘at home-ness’ and I remember thinking about it that way especially when I was counselling refugees and asylum seekers…it was realy like carrying their home on their back. However, when talking with a colleague yesterday and mentioning it to him, he told me that the tortoise carries the shell on its back, which makes it quite slow and difficult to move…and mentioned the idea around finding ‘home’ inside and be able to ‘outgrow’ one’s boundaries or sense of secure space in that way. This made me think of the mataphor in a different way.I am thinking around this sense of ‘at home-ness’ (or lack of it) in cross-cultural counselling and within myself as a ‘bi-cultural’ person. Where is ‘home’ after all?

Reflecting on my own cultural background and the observations I made around relationship dynamics in the different cultural environments I have been exposed to, I became very aware of the role of the use of ‘power’, especially when acknowledging the existence of ‘dominant’ and ‘dominated’ cultures, and how such tendencies inevitably come into play in the counselling room. And, although those involved in delivering psychological/support services are in a ‘caring’ role, I think it is of paramount importance to remember Contenuto’s saying, not to encourage fear towards one’s role but to cultivate the necessary humility within those ‘helping’ roles. … Read more »